Hutt

The Hutt are a large, slug-like alien with short, stubby arms, huge eyes, and a wide mouth. They originated on the planet Varl, but have populated a great number of other worlds including Nal Hutta. They speak their own language, and have the ability to see in visible light as well as ultraviolet light. They often light their palaces with both, turning off the natural lighting to give trespassers a false sense of stealth. Despite the sheer bulk of their flesh, Hutts do not have a skeleton. Instead, an internal mantle helps shape the head and support the arms, while the rest of their body is simply one large, snail-like foot.

The skin of a Hutt is incredibly thick, and is covered with a mixture of mucus and oily sweat. This makes the skin able to resist harsh chemicals and even some blaster bolts. Below the epidermis is a thick layer of blubber that helps maintain body temperature and makes it impossible to puncture their skin with a knife. Hutts are also hermaphroditic, often choosing to appear as one sex or the other for the benefit of their audience.

Young Hutts spend their first year of life inside a pouch on their mother’s belly, and are virtually mindless. They live near their mothers for several decades after birth, returning to their pouches when they are scared or tired. Young Hutts aren’t considered accountable until they are well over 100 years old. All Hutts have a given name, which is supported by their clan name and their surname (eg., Jabba Desilijic Tiure).

The history of the Hutt race can be traced to the early times before the formation of the Old Republic. They were a strong force even then, dominating large portions of the space surrounding their homeworld. After the discovery of the hyperdrive, the Hutts began expanding their territories, but ran into Xim the Despot. Xim and the Hutts fought several fierce battles near the uninhabited world of Vontor, until the Hutts discovered the Si'Klaata Cluster and the strong, warrior-like races it hid.

The Hutts managed to sign the Klatooinans, Niktos, and Vodrans into perpetual servitude, and used many warriors during the Third Battle of Vontor. This was the decisive battle against Xim, and left the Hutts in control of large areas of the galaxy. However, the Hutts could not escape their own greedy nature, and soon began to covet each other’s holdings. Interclan wars broke out, and the clans eventually broke off relations with each other.

When they realized that this was bad for business, they began exchanging messengers. The Hutts took to killing the messengers if they didn’t like the message, but this further impaired business. So, the Hutts made a pact which recognized messengers as sacrosanct. As a race, Hutts do not trust any other races, a trait that stems from an incident in which all prominent Hutts on Nal Hutta were executed by an assassin.

Description:
Nal Hutta and its moon, Nar Shaddaa, are located in the centre of Hutt Space and receive a constant traffic of freight haulers, smugglers, and other galactic traders. The planet is ruled by a council of the eldest members of the "Clans of the Ancients", the oldest Hutt families. The world's population consists of nearly seven billion inhabitants, three billion of them Hutts.

A bruised green, blue, and brown planet in the Y'Toub system, Nal Hutta (meaning "glorious jewel" in Huttese) is one of the primary planets settled by the Hutts after leaving their ancestral home of Varl. The planet's immense size is compensated by its extremely low density, giving it a tolerable gravity. Nal Hutta was once a pleasant world of mountainous rain forests. Since their arrival, however, the Hutts have transformed it into a gloomy planet of stinking bogs, stagnant, scum-covered puddles, and patches of sickly marsh grass inhabited by insects and spiders.

The planet's flocks of large, clumsy birds are shot down by swoop-riding hunters. The atmosphere is polluted by strip-mining operations in Nal Hutta's industrial centres, and a greasy rain drizzles down on the world's destitute inhabitants living in their squatters' villages and ghettos. Entertainment centres located near the Nal Hutta spaceport stand on stilts in the planet's swampy ground. The white palace of Durga the Hutt lies across from the spaceport, and features a swamp-water bathhouse and an infamous network of dungeons. Raw materials are continually strip-mined from Nal Hutta's surface and shipped to the Nar Shaddaa moon for processing and transport.

Many years ago, the planet was known as Evocar and was the homeworld of the primitive Evocii. When the Hutts arrived, they traded technology to the Evocii in exchange for land, eventually buying up the planet and forcing the Evocii from their homeworld. The Old Republic relocated the displaced Evocii to the Nar Shaddaa moon, but they fared no better there. Once the Hutts controlled the entire planet, they replaced all Evocii structures with Hutt palaces and shrines and renamed the world Nal Hutta. The planet's nearness to busy hyperspace lanes made it a popular trade world at the time, though the trade lanes have long since shifted. In recent history, Nal Hutta and its moon have become a haven for smugglers, pirates, and criminals.